Ontario County officials have fought for the runway for years. They hope it attracts new business to the county.

Are we witnessing the subsidization of corporate sprawl? Why are taxpayers footing the bill for infrastructure in Ontario County when there’s a perfectly nice (underutilized?) airport 32.5 miles away in Monroe County along a highway leading straight to Canandaigua?

12 Responses to Corporate Sprawl

It honestly is as simple as this: John Travolta.
There are quite a few jetsetters with places in the Finger Lakes now and they don’t want to be bothered with that extra travel time since they are flying in a Corp. Jet anyway as a way to bypass regular air travel. Kodak used to have 3 of them and it’s own hanger at the Rochester Airport. When travel is a write off you might as well travel in style. These are the people behind both parties financially and that is why their desires matter more than common sense or the good of the people.

My feeling….this investment in the airport does not bother me at all. For an economy to function, money has to flow. This 7 million is going to jobs. Why the airport needs to be expanded is a question I cannot answer. If its for the rich to vacation on the finger lakes or for businesses to expand….all the better.

The only justification I can see is that the leaders want to be able to attract companies to the former Infotonics site, given its new attachment with UAlbany nanotech. The problem is that regional site never should have been placed in Canandaigua in the first place. I find it hard to believe there wasn’t adequate space for it closer to Rochester back when the regional centers of excellence were first proposed.

7 million dollars for 2300 ft of blacktop. sounds like the taxpayers are getting a good trimming on the runway extension. if there was that much demand why didn’t a privite company pay for it. because a privite company never would have paid that much.

I said a year ago that kodak going bankrupt was only a sham to screw the retirees and i was right.

I would bet that most people who hate this expansion, support MCC Downtown campus. 75M +3M a year, to build a school 5 miles from the main campus. NO NEW BUILDING at Main MCC would be needed to house all of MCC. No 1000s of unneeded trips every day between campuses, (green) no segregation potential. But if minorities / city people want their own campus thats fine, we can spend 75M. But 7M for a runaway to promote business and commerce in the Candig. area is BAD? One group pays the bills (taxes) and their want is bad, The other we’re not so sure they all pay taxes but their 10 times the money want is good?

While I agree with the idea that this is primarily about indulging the super-rich and increasing their detachment from reality, Rachal’s point is being overlooked. The East Side, from Eastview Mall to south Canandaigua, is exploding with growth. The essence of any effort by communities to organize and plan their growth (their future!) entails looking at the flow of corporate interests and intervening when they run counter to good public policy. Nutty “Free Marketers” will rebel at this idea but we have a deeply damaged environment, an infrastructure repair crisis and the threat of enormous new taxpayer-financed development costs (sewer, water, roads, power, etc.) that demonstrate the effects when corporate interests alone drive development. Just because the super-rich like the Finger Lakes should not be a reason the middle class has to finance their development. If anyone is familiar with COMIDA you will know that these new developments don’t pay any of their own taxes, the rest of us are privileged to do it for them.

The top 10% of income earners pay 70% of the Fed taxes. What is it that your “paying for them” exactly? We have a deeply damaged environment? Where? There are more coyotes, bears, ducks, geese, swans, deer, mink etc in this area than there have been in 200yrs. Your just jealous of their prosperity. There are FEW corp CORPORATE interests growing in eastview to Canandaigua. FEW There are a few large factory /office complexes that are empty IN FACT. The former Kodak facility near the thruway exit has been vacant for years. Tourism is what is expanding the Finger lakes, Wine and tours and the mom and pop business that support those efforts. Unless of course your against winery ‘s growing.. No those are cool right? “But we decide which is right and which is an illusion”

When I was in junior high school, the City of Rochester was a well-run place with a balance of Democrats and (gasp) Republicans. Without any warning, the City Council was suddenly dominated by progressive Democrats (including a jerk who taught social studies at my suburban high school) who were almost completely out of touch with reality… canceling the Genesee Expressway, finding ways to drive out businesses and making excuses for family breakdown instead of attacking it… and things began to ever more rapidly spiral downward.

It is no coincidence that Marketplace was built in the suburbs (its equivalents in Buffalo and Syracuse were built in their cities). Every time investments are made outside your reach, take heart with the knowledge that people like you are the main reason.

John G did you seriously bring up the cancelling of the Genesee Expressway’s previous alingment as a bad thing? It would have destroyed the southeast of the city. Swillburg would be all but wiped off the map and the wedge would be divided. It’s one of the only intelligent things this city has done in the past 40 years. We’re lucky 490 was able to be mostly put in the canal bed or the eastern neighborhoods would have probably gone the same was as Dutchtown and the other west side neighborhoods that 490 bulldozed through.